In December '13, the EU imposed definitive anti-dumping (AD) and anti-subsidy (AS) duties on solar panels and cells from China. These duties are applicable until 7 December '15. In parallel, the EU accepted the price undertaking with a minimum import price (MIP) and a maximum import volume. Today it is clear that solar installations dropped dramatically in Europe, from 17 GWp in 2012 to under 7 GWp in 2014. The number of jobs in the solar sector fell from 265.000 in 2011 to around 120.000 today. It is generally accepted that the import duties and the price undertaking contributed to this slowdown in Europe. To date, the MIP has mainly ensured the survival of SolarWorld, one of the initiators of the AD and AS complaints.

 

Recent events:

 

• 20 Aug '15: ZNShine got excluded from the price undertaking and possibly Chint Solar and Suntellite will be excluded soon;

 

• 8 Sep '15: EU Prosun (the SolarWorld-backed lobby group in favour of import duties) filed an official request for review (and thus extension) of the import duties to the EU-Commission;

 

• 2 Oct '15: Members of the European Parliament, representing all the major political groups, stated in an open letter: “For the European solar sector to return to growth and to see jobs return we call on the EU Commission to end the duties and MIP”;

 

• 7 Oct '15: Australia decided to end the AD case against Chinese solar firms, finding only negligible injury to the local solar industry;

 

• 12 Oct '15: Taiwan media reported that 7 local manufacturers are accused of labelling goods manufactured in China as Taiwan-made for the EU market. Although not confirmed, 3 names already circulate: Tainergy, Tynsolar and Ablytek.

 

• 20 Oct '15: Dutch anti-fraud authorities, in cooperation with German authorities, performed a search and seizure of fraudulently imported Chinese solar modules in the port of Rotterdam. In September '15 already 47.000 modules were reported to be blocked in the Port of Rotterdam, amongst others from Amerisolar and Sunrise Solartech.

 

The EU-commission is expected to decide on a review of the import duties by the end of November '15. If there is a review, this charade might get extended until the beginning of 2017. Cleantec Trade favours free trade and therefore strongly opposes an extension.